In the technology and business world we regularly come across innovative startups that have developed a new product or service that use ground breaking technology to address the market needs. Such startups get a lot of media coverage and attention due to their success in entering the market with a bang. But equally commendable (or in some cases it is even tougher) is the ability to maintain and grow the business for a few decades with the same core concepts for the company. One such example is Lego – a toy and play material manufacturer founded in 1932 – currently the world’s most-valuable toy manufacturer.

In the part I of this article we introduce the 4 key concepts which we believe contributed to the longevity and business success of Lego and if utilized effectively can be useful for other businesses also. In future parts of this article we will review further details of these 4 key concepts and how Lego used them effectively to achieve success.

Strong and consistent core values

Building and growing a company based on strong, well-defined and consistent core values will ensure a clear strategic flow for the decision makers and a consistent direction for the implementers and other decision makers. It will also influence the customers by accumulating the company’s brand presence over the years rather than starting fresh or creating a new brand image every few years.

Adaptable and flexible product line

An innovative or in-demand product in this decade might not be relevant in the future. And in the current dynamic digital world the time period of relevance might be even less than a year. Hence it is vital for the company’s success to continuously develop new products or re-align their existing product lineups to ensure relevance with the market needs.

Linking with and leveraging current trends

Every generation or time line has a set of popular trends based on the type of domain the business is operating in. For example in the entertainment domain movies play a major role in defining the trends and in the current timeline of the past few years superhero movies and specific science fiction movies (like Star Wars) have gained (or in some cases regained) a huge following. By linking to these movie franchises either directly or indirectly the business will be able to provide products that are directly aligned to the current popular trends and thus leverage the momentum of these trends to expand their market.

Diversifying into extended domains while maintaining the core values

Diversification is a commonly used and popular strategy to extend or grow the business and in some cases even to hedge against the existing business domain. In this current scenario we are referring to diversification to expand the business by growing into domains that are relevant extensions of the current domain. By expanding into domains that are related to and strategic extensions of the current domain the business can leverage the brand presence and the business infrastructure and know-how it has built over the years.